Summary and Analysis

Study Tools

Civil Disobedience

Henry David Thoreau

Table of Contents

Context

Thoreau's Civil Disobedience espouses the need to prioritize one's
conscience over the dictates of laws. It criticizes American social
institutions and policies, most prominently slavery and the Mexican-American
War.

Thoreau begins his essay by arguing that government rarely proves itself useful and that it derives its power from the majority because they are the strongest
group, not because they hold the most legitimate viewpoint. He contends that people's first obligation is to do what they believe is right and not to follow
the law dictated by the majority. When a government is unjust, people should
refuse to follow the law and distance themselves from the government in
general. A person is not obligated to devote his life to eliminating evils from
the world, but he is obligated not to participate in such evils. This
includes not being a member of an unjust institution (like the government).
Thoreau further argues that the United States fits his criteria for an unjust
government, given its support of slavery and its practice of aggressive war.

Thoreau doubts the effectiveness of reform within the government, and he argues
that voting and petitioning for change achieves little. He presents his own
experiences as a model for how to relate to an unjust government: In
protest of slavery, Thoreau refused to pay taxes and spent a night in
jail. But, more generally, he ideologically dissociated himself from the government, "washing
his hands" of it and refusing to participate in his institutions. According to
Thoreau, this form of protest was preferable to advocating for reform from
within government; he asserts that one cannot see government for what it is when
one is working within it.

Civil Disobedience covers several topics, and Thoreau intersperses poetry
and social commentary throughout. For purposes of clarity and readability, the
essay has been divided into three sections here, though Thoreau himself made no
such divisions.